a sloppy kiss on his cheek. ‘How thoughtful of you.’
The reek of booze was still tangible.
‘Put it away mum. Jesus, I’m trying to eat,’ said Ryan irately, wiping off the kiss. She looked down and then hurriedly tightened the gown.
‘I hope I didn’t wake you last night,’ she added.
Ryan’s butty stopped an inch short of his mouth and then slowly returned to his plate.
‘Wake me?’ he repeated. ‘Mum, you tore the house to pieces.’
She stopped with one hand on the fridge door and looked at him as though he was speaking a foreign language.
‘What are you talking about, honey? The place looks fine.’
‘That’s because I spent half the night clearing up after you,’ he said angrily. ‘Jeez, don’t you remember throwing your guts up in here?’
The strange look remained fixed on her face.
‘Babe, I’ve no idea what you are talking about. Granted, I feel a little worse for wear this morning, but I’m not that bad.’
‘Right. Wait here,’ said Ryan firmly, heading upstairs to fetch his phone. ‘And for your information it’s now the afternoon,’ he called from the landing.
By the time he got back his mum was tucking into the remnants of the fry-up that he had not been able to fit into his sandwich.
‘Mmm, this is great darling; just what I needed,’ she said through a mouthful of bacon. There was no doubting that Mrs Butler was an attractive woman, but this was hardly her finest moment.
Ryan sat down as close to her as he could stomach and tried to assume the same tone she usually adopted when he’d been up to no good. He opened the stored image folder on his phone and flicked back to a picture of the hallway.
‘Right, let’s start from the top, shall we?’ he said.
His mother peered over with interest.
‘At approximately half past midnight this morning you returned home.’ Ryan was doing his best to recount it with the unwavering certainty of a TV detective. It wasn’t a great success, but it amused his mum. That was, until she saw the photo. ‘On entering the property you attempted to turn on the hall light so you could see what you were doing. You missed.’
The images of the shattered portrait and the bloodied glass on the floor seemed to hit his mum like a thunderbolt. She sat back, staring at the plaster on her hand, as the fragmented memories began to piece themselves back together.
‘Oh my God,’ she mouthed, slowly turning to Ryan with a look of unmitigated horror in her eyes.
‘Indeed,’ said Ryan stoutly, trying to maintain his stoic demeanour. ‘I'm afraid it gets worse from here on. Having finally managed to work the lights, you suddenly realised just how hungry you were feeling. So you made your way here, to the kitchen, to make yourself something to eat.’
‘Don’t…’ cried his mum, putting up her hands and turning away as he made to show her the image of the smashed bowl on the floor. She gave a small sob, and Ryan knew that he no longer needed the phone.
When she eventually turned back, her eyes were moist and her cheeks streaked with the remnants of her mascara. She looked at him with such helplessness that Ryan’s resolve broke, and he reached forward and hugged her. It was something he hadn’t done for a long time; not since realising that showing outward affection to one’s parents was not cool. He didn’t care now. Anyone could have been watching and he would not have felt ashamed. It was just like the moment the previous evening when a rarely used emotion had triggered and he had made the decision to clean her mess up. He loved his mum too much to see her go through such pain.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he heard her sob into his T-shirt.
Ryan wasn’t really used to dealing with someone so distraught. A couple of pats on the back and a ‘there, there,’ did not seem to do it justice. Still, that was all he could think of, so he did it anyway.
After a while his mum seemed to regain herself a little and she sat up. Taking him by the shoulders, she looked deep into his eyes as tears continued to carve deep furrows down her cheeks.
‘Ryan, honey. I am so, so sorry. I… I just don’t know what to say. For you to see that… to put you through it… I’m such a terrible, terrible mother.’
‘No Mum…’
‘Yes I am, I’m crap at it. I haven’t been looking after you properly or spending any quality time with you. I’ve just given you all this to deal with.’
‘Mum, Mum seriously, it’s okay. I’m fourteen years old. I don’t want to spend quality time with you. I just want you to cook me dinner and clean my clothes like any other boy my age.’
He gave her a weak smile, which she returned.
‘I haven’t even been doing that, though, have I?’ she murmured.
‘Well, it would be nice to see you sometimes. Not a lot. Just a bit. We both miss Dad, but it’s up to us to make the best of it.’
The mention of his father brought a fresh flood of tears.
‘Oh Ryan, I am so bad. I don’t deserve you, either of you. I’m just a horrible, horrible person.’
Ryan was starting to regret opening a can of such pitiful, self-loathing worms.
‘Mum, get a grip. You were just drunk. It happens to everyone at some point, I’m sure.’
‘But you don’t understand…’
‘Mum, seriously. Just give me my stuff back and we’ll call it quits, eh? Dad won’t have to know about either of us, will he?’
She stared forlornly at his stern face for some moments before her self-pity finally subsided.
‘Okay babe. After all the clearing up you must have done I can hardly say no to that, can I? It sounds like I’m getting a bargain.’ She gave the best smile that she could.
‘The photo in the hallway needs a new frame,’ said Ryan gravely, suppressing the delight building up inside him as he watched his mum head out into the utility room and emerge a few moments later carrying his bundle of cables.
‘And you’ll get rid of all the photos?’ she asked as she put them down on the table.
‘Every last one,’ replied Ryan. ‘Look; all gone.’
He waved the phone in front of her, the screen blank. She would never have known whether or not he was telling the truth. In actual fact he had really deleted them. After all, he had copies safely stored on his computer. Just in case.
Another upshot of Ryan’s ploy was that his mum had no qualms over letting him see his friends that afternoon. In fact, she even went as far as offering him a lift there, which he accepted as graciously as he could manage, figuring he might as well make the most of it while the going was good.
For Ryan, Saturdays were often spent up at the leisure centre in town, doing his best to get one up on his mates in the presence of girls their age. It was hardly a place that exuded class – an ugly, garish sprawl built on top of an old landfill site – but that was not something that bothered kids Ryan’s age in the slightest. It had a cinema, bowling alley and arcades, but the main attraction for the boys was the ice rink, which ran a disco session during the afternoon. It was like a magnet for gaggles of girls in their early teens, most of whom were hopeless skaters. But that was part of the draw; it was a chance for the boys to show off their skills in the hope that one of them would take the bait.
Ryan and his mates had been going there for a while and were all good skaters, though while their lines had been cast on plenty of occasions, their bite-rate was pretty dismal.
However, this was the last thing on Ryan’s mind as he dug out his skates and made for the front door. Aside from a week or so of detention, the Miss Ward incident was now well and truly behind him and his fortress was back up to full strength. He would enjoy wowing Jack and the others with how he had managed to get his punishment overturned so quickly.
He was so wrapped up in his own glory that as he opened the front door and stepped outside he almost walked straight through Daisy, who was just reaching for the doorbell. He took evasive action and spun off the porch, nearly tearing down a load of climbing pl
ants in the process.
‘Jeez Dizz,’ he exclaimed, disentangling himself from the greenery.
‘Hi Ryan,’ she replied airily, giggling at his misfortune. ‘How are you feeling? I didn’t see you last night. I hope what I said when we were preparing dinner didn’t scare you off. You seemed a little distant after that.’
In actual fact, Ryan had barely had a chance to give it a second thought. Already it seemed an age ago and a great deal had happened since. He had banished Daisy’s comments to a deep, dark corner of his mind, for retrieval and consideration at a more appropriate time. If he could even be bothered.
‘I had a late night Dizz. By the time I arrived most of you guys had gone.’
‘Oh. So you’re not mad with me then?’
Ryan frowned.
‘Why should I be mad at you?’
‘Oh don’t worry. As long as you’re not, that’s fine.’
‘Dizz, you’re not making any sense,’ said Ryan.
For a change, added a voice in his head.
‘Oh, it’s okay. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. Fancy a walk in the woods?’
‘Sorry, I’m off skating,’ he replied thankfully, holding up his skates.
At that moment the door slammed shut behind him.
‘You sure you’ve got everything, my love?’ came his mum’s voice as she locked it. ‘Oh hello Daisy. Are you coming along too?’
Noooooo! screamed the voice in Ryan’s head. Mum, what are you doing to me?
‘Oh no, I was just seeing if Ryan wanted to come for a walk with me,’ said Daisy, as honest and to the point as ever.
Ryan’s